The Mother of All Lies review – pursuing the truth of Morocco’s brutal dictatorship years

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Asmae El Moudir employs a delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony to brilliantly evoke personal and collective trauma Between those who refuse to remember and those who struggle to forget, a tumultuous clash of minds occupies the centre of Asmae El Moudir’s inventive documentary, a prize-winner at last year’s Cannes film festival. Through a constellation of clay figurines and dollhouse-style miniature sets, most of which were constructed by El Moudir’s father, the director recreates her oppressive childhood in the Sebata district of Casablanca. Under the watchful eyes of her domineering grandmother Zahra, all personal photos are banished from the house, save for a picture of King Hassan II. The delicate mix of handmade replicas and oral testimony brilliantly evokes the personal and collective trauma that stem from Morocco’s “Years of Lead” – a period of state brutality under Hassan II’s dictatorial rule. Lingering on the nimble fingers of El Moudir’s father as he puts t
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Bad City review – retro homage to 80s Japanese thrillers is elegantly pulpy

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A taskforce of honest cops is assembled to tackle the gangsters menacing Kaiko City. Many punches are thrown in choreographed style

Director Kensuke Sonomura started off as a stunt performer and coordinator, so it’s no surprise that his second directorial effort contains lashings of hand-to-hand combat. Indeed, just as the climactic cops v gangsters showdown is about to kick off, elderly lawman Torada (Hitoshi Ozawa) urges everyone not to use silly, unsporting guns, and miraculously both sides agree and go to it with fists and knives. It’s just as well because, hitherto, almost every time someone has fired a gun in anger in this film they have missed the target. Does that mean all those movies where folks hit their target with one bullet are lying? Or is this one, where everyone is pants at shooting, the misrepresentation? Either way, it’s almost enough to make you question your core beliefs in the efficacy of cinematic firearms.

Anyway, if you like watching actors and stunt folk battle it out, this is great stuff but the connecting plot strung between fights is more of a chore. In fictional Japanese metropolis Kaiko City, corruption is rife and it all seems to stem from Wataru Gojo (Lily Franky) who has designs on redeveloping a poor part of the city. As Gojo is announcing his bid to become Kaiko’s mayor, we see a bathhouse of lushly tattooed yakuza get wiped out by a single long-haired squinting assassin (Tak Sakaguchi). Is he working for Madam (Rino Katase), queenpin of the Korean mafia in Kaiko, who rather entertainingly dresses like someone trying to shoplift all the stock from a Versace boutique at the same time. The chief prosecutor and his assistant put together a taskforce of honest cops from the Violent Crimes unit, and place Torada in charge, even though up until now he’s been in jail on charges that connect him to Madam.

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